


Blessed Are Those Who Have Not Seen

by XWingAce



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Choices offered, F/M, Oh dear I think I wrote shipper fic, Other, Yep definitely shipper fic, philosophising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-07 10:38:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6800368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XWingAce/pseuds/XWingAce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You hide so much from your children, hoping that not knowing will keep them safe. Because once they know, they must act on that knowledge, and that will change their life however they choose to act." Chloe stumbles into a fight she would probably have been better off staying out of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Blessed are Those Who Have not Seen

Chloe Decker found her way to the abandoned building more by instinct than by any investigative power. Well, that and the humongous storm cloud building right above it. Trouble was brewing and this looked like the epicentre. Of course Lucifer would be here.

The week had started of mostly normal, as far as that went, with another murder case. A particularly gruesome one, admittedly, and with no clue yet as to suspects. Lucifer had shown up with inappropriate comments at the ready as usual. But as he'd walked further into the extensive crime scene, first the smile had dropped, then the eyebrows. Lucifer had turned inward until he didn't seem to be looking at the corpses at all, but at something else entirely.

On the next crime scene the day after, different location but much the same otherwise, he'd started out quiet. He'd stayed quiet, too, Quiet, intense, and a particular brand of controlled rage. This was a Lucifer she'd caught glimpses of before. Like when he'd casually announced his intent to rip Malcolm's limbs off, and later when he'd stood over Malcolm and watched him bleed out. She'd never seen that Lucifer stick around this long.

The press, ever hungry for scandal, was going crazy on this one. More even than on the Satanic killings that had seen Lucifer himself implicated a few weeks ago. There was nothing in this case that pointed even vaguely in his direction. The high profile of preacher Williams' murder had inspired other doom-preachers to point their fingers at Lucifer. The media at least were listening to them.

Lucifer wasn't. He'd walked through the sea of questions outside the second crime scene like Moses through the Red Sea, all parting before him.

And that was the last Chloe had seen of him all week, even though the next day, a _third_ massacre was discovered. Lucifer didn't answer his phone, Lux was deserted and the door to his apartment locked.

She thought she'd spotted Maze on the crime scene perimeter. But it could just have been a black woman dressed in leather. By the time she'd reached there, the woman was gone.

The fourth day, she didn't bother calling. The scene was different. There were still deaths, but someone or something had interfered. At least half the victims were still alive, but they were all gibbering. The least incoherent one said something about demons and a dark, no, a _black_ angel, saving them, then flying off into the desert. Well, it was the closest Chloe'd had to a clue so far.

 

This was where her instincts told her to get in her car and start driving. She did. It brought her _here_. Wherever here was. The cloud above was roiling, with flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder promising more to come. But on the ground, everything seemed silent, still, abandoned.

Then it wasn’t. For one brief instant, the ground at her feet lit up. A line not three feet away from her curved into the distance, blue lightning and red fire intertwined. It faded almost before it could register, but it _had_ been there.

Chloe took a step to where the line had manifested itself, intending to step past it. She couldn't. When she hit the point where the line had been, the air around her lit up, blue and red and solid as bricks. She could step back easily. Going forward was impossible.

"Chloe." 

Chloe started. When she'd taken the step toward the… barrier, she'd been alone. Now Lucifer, Maze and a black man were all standing beside her. In the back of her head, she recognized the black guy, too. Lucifer had introduced him as his brother, back at the auction where he'd hoped to retrieve his wings.

Not quite the same circumstances. Instead of good suits, both of them wore jeans and leather, and the black guy – Amenadiel? – was hefting a sword of all things. Not just a sword either, but one of those big two-handers.

Then there was Lucifer, the man whose weapons were words or his own bare hands. Had she forgotten that he'd thrown a suspect through a plate glass window without any sign of effort? She definitely hadn't forgotten talking him down from strangling another, literally single-handed. Lucifer was holding a spear that looked designed to stop a rhino. He also looked shocked to see her, color draining from his face.

"Detective, you really shouldn't be here," he said, as if he wasn't standing there dressed to kill. He'd gone pale as ash. 

" _I_ shouldn't be here? Lucifer, what is going on?

Lucifer squared his shoulders. His color had come back, but his expression was still grim. "I am correcting my own mistakes."'

"Didn't we have this discussion? You can't just run off and..."

"We haven't got time for this," Maze interrupted. "The barrier's up, he knows we're here."

"And you're not going anywhere," Lucifer said, looking at Chloe. "Bloody hell. Okay, change of plans. Maze, protect her." 

Maze looked ready to protest, but Lucifer shot her a look that had nothing of command in it. "Please, Mazikeen." Maze rolled her eyes, but nodded and pulled out a set of wickedly curved daggers. They looked suspiciously like the set that the LAPD had taken from Lucifer's apartment.

"I'll take on the mortals, then," Amenadiel added, nodding his head to the door of the building. A ragged group of people was approaching, the nearer ones breaking into a run. Amenadiel handed the sword to Lucifer. "I'll catch you up."

"Yes, well, I suppose this was a battle to the death regardless." Lucifer slung the spear across his back to take the sword. "Don't take too long." He took off. In fact, Lucifer just took a step and then plain disappeared, as if he'd teleported away. 

Amenadiel cracked his knuckles as the people approached. "Time to get to work." Chloe started to pull her gun, just in case.

She needn't have bothered. The 'work' took the blink of an eye. By the time Chloe had got her gun up, the oncoming horde had been replaced with a scene not unlike one of the earlier crime scenes. Amenadiel was gone.

One difference between this and the crime scenes, though. These people were alive, as Chloe found out when she went to check on the closest. Unconscious, bruised and battered, but alive. "Who are these people?" She asked Maze, who hadn't disappeared.

"People who chose to kill instead of dying," Maze answered. She gave Chloe's gun a look of disdain. "That's not going to do you any good here."

Chloe ignored her long enough to assess a few more of the unconscious people. She could discern no pattern in age, race or gender, but all of them in clothes that looked like they'd been worn for days. All the clothing was bloodstained, but, from the two she inspected more closely, that blood didn't belong to the owners of the clothes.

Now she turned on Maze. "What the hell is going on here? Where's Lucifer?"

"Hell is _exactly_ what's going on here. An escaped demon, feeding on death and chaos, and powerful enough that it'll take the Lord of Hell himself to force him back down." Chloe got another one of Maze's characteristic derogatory looks. "Let's hope that what we've got is enough."

Chloe closed her eyes and sighed. This again. Both Lucifer and Maze remained consistent in their conviction about this whole Satan, Hell and damnation business, and it was only making things worse. It was also not the point right now. "So if it's that bad, why aren't we helping?"

The look she got from Maze now was at least a little _less_ insulted at the very fact of her existence. "He said to keep you safe." Maze looked away. "And he's safer if you're not around."

"You don't really believe that, and I sure don't. Where is he?"

That question didn't need answering, in fact. A crash from inside the building told her enough. Chloe rushed inside, Maze on her heels.

The building was larger than she'd thought. After a short hallway, it opened up into a large, mostly empty interior space. It hadn't _looked_ like an airplane hangar from the outside, but that's what it seemed to be. It was also on fire.

In the middle of the room was… some sort of special effects prop? It made for a convincing demon, at least. It was hard to get an impression of scale, because her eyes kept sliding off it. The overall impression was one of a mountain of glowing embers beneath a layer of dried blood, crowned with curled horns too heavy to be realistic.

Lucifer stood in front of the thing, leather jacket and the shirt underneath rent to shreds. The scars on his back showed as bloody streaks. He was wielding the big sword one-handed, with the spear in the other. He shouted his defiance as he deflected blow after blow without doing much damage in turn.

An opening, of sorts. Lucifer stepped back, the arm with the sword moving further back. The butt of the spear clanked to the floor for extra support. Lucifer threw the sword up in a high arc, over the things head.

As he threw, a second figure rose up from behind the creature. A pair of wings unfolded from the other fighter. The first impression Chloe had was of an eagle except much, much bigger, rising and stooping on the hunt. It was gorgeous in its elegance and fearsome in purpose.

What struck wasn't an eagle. At the intersection of the wings was a human figure. Amenadiel! He caught the sword at the apex of the arc and then swung it at the back of the creature's neck. Immediately he turned (yes, in mid-air, and where had he hidden those wings all this time? How did he have wings at all?) to evade the counterstrike. A fiery arm came swinging up to catch at the new annoyance. Amenadiel dodged, beating up and around to prepare for another strike. His opponent's head turned, awaiting the fall of the sword.

In doing so, the creature presented its side to Lucifer. He'd recovered from the throw and now took a two-handed grip on his spear and rammed it into the thing's side.

That had an effect. The mountain of embers erupted, roaring into flame. It also flailed wildly. Amenadiel, who failed to evade the uncontrolled backswing, was swatted aside. Lucifer, still hanging on to the spear, was swept along. Pulled off his feet, he let go and rolled some distance before coming to a stop.

Amenadiel had landed in a heap not too far from Chloe and Maze. He sat up, shaking off a daze. 

Lucifer stayed down longer. It was a good thing he'd put distance between himself and the creature, because he had its full attention again. It had turned toward him and began to approach with deliberate slowness.

"Lucifer!" Maze shouted, the first sound she'd made since coming into the room. She pulled her daggers from under her jacket and sprinted forward to protect her boss.

Chloe blinked and realised she still had her gun out. She raised it to her target – a little higher than she was used to aiming, and started shooting.

Maze had been right. The bullets didn't even ricochet. They were just absorbed in the boiling mass of flame. The only thing they accomplished was for the thing to turn around again and focus its attention on _her_.

Chloe felt her heartrate rise. She had to deliberately swallow and still couldn't get rid of the lump that had formed in her throat. It was one thing to look at the creature as it was engaged with others, but now its eye was on her, and everything became that much more… more. 

Her instincts were screaming at her to move, to _run_ , to get away, while at the same time they kept her rooted to the spot, knowing it was useless. Her arms were locked into place, her gun still up and her finger still on the trigger. But she couldn't even move that finger, little use as it would have been.

Maze had reversed direction, was coming toward her now. Too slow, and yet the thing didn't seem to move at all quickly. Time flowed like treacle, and even if she had been able to move, she could never, ever be fast enough to outrun _that_.

Beyond the oncoming creature, she saw Lucifer had managed to get to his knees. His face contorted into a scream. Chloe couldn't hear past the rushing of blood in her ears. Slowly, ever so slowly, Lucifer closed his eyes and bent his head. His chest moved as if he were breathing in for another scream. 

Then, he rose.

Lucifer rose up, and kept rising. From his back, above him, wings of shining light unfolded. No bird comparisons entered Chloe's mind this time. They were all of their own, grace and power. If she'd still had breath, the sight of them would have taken it away. 

In her current state of mind, it all made sense. The Devil had once been an angel. His name _meant_ light-bringer. Now she knew why. The light of the wings outshone the fear the other thing put out, and she felt like maybe she'd be able to move again, in time.

But it didn't last. As soon as they manifested, smoke rose up from around the base of the wings, covering them in black soot and smothering the divine light. There had been nothing more than the merest glimpse, a tiny spark of hope.

Lucifer had changed himself, to something not that different from the thing he'd been fighting. If someone came into the fight now, they wouldn't have been able to tell good guy from bad.

Either the demon had become smaller, Lucifer had become larger, or perspective had been playing tricks on Chloe all along. Lucifer was suddenly of a height with it, taller, even. He reached out, grabbed the thing's head, kneed it in the -- well if it wasn't its groin, it still looked like it hurt -- and threw it to the ground. Then he kneeled next to it and _pushed_. And kept pushing.

The ground below the creature took on its fiery hues and started to tear and melt. Lucifer was pushing the demon straight through the concrete floor.

Time started again. Everything was shaking, and debris started to fall. Cracks were racing across the floor, radiating out from the titanic struggle. Chloe dropped her gun, then fell to hands and knees. Her legs wouldn't support her any further. Maze took the three steps required to come to her side, but couldn't help her back up before a crack opened up underneath. Both of them rolled aside, helpless.

Amenadiel soared in, wrapping both his arms and wings around both her and Maze. Safety, more or less.

Just how much more, Chloe wouldn't know, because at that point the adrenaline ran out. She lost consciousness.

\--

She drifted close to waking once to feel arms around her, carrying her as if she were a child.

\--

The next time, she was in a familiar bed. Her own. She wasn't wearing her shoes anymore. She fell asleep.

There were nightmares – of course. The demon approaching her, the inevitability of the capture and nothing she could do about it. She twisted and turned, throwing off her blankets. Still she couldn't bring herself to full wakefulness to dispel the nightmare.

A door opened. Someone was coming in. She couldn't open her eyes.

Even less than half-conscious, Chloe recognised Trixie's voice, sleepily asking why she'd been woken up. 

The answer was low voiced, pitched to not disturb a sleeper. "Your mother needs you for a bit."

"Okay."

Trixie was deposited next to her, and the girl immediately curled into her, like she'd always done. At least until Chloe had made her sleep in her own bed at night. Chloe wrapped herself around Trixie too. This, at least, she could protect. 

Trixie was asleep again as soon as she'd lain down. Chloe was now at least half-awake and she tried to force her eyes open, to at least acknowledge Lucifer, say… something. But there was a hand on her head, slowly stroking her hair.

"Rest, Detective. It's all taken care of."

The hand stayed, gently brushing hair off her forehead. It felt safe, sheltering. She moved her own hand to stroke Trixie's hair, who responded by snuggling closer. She hugged the girl tighter. The hand lifted, but she could hear the faint rustle of fabric that meant Lucifer had sat in the chair next to the bed.

"You hide so much from your children, hoping that not knowing will keep them safe. At least for a time." Lucifer spoke softly, and he wasn't expecting a response. Nor would Chloe have been able to give it, for all that his words came through clearly. "They must learn at some point in order to survive, but you hope to soften the blow by postponing it. Because once they know, they must act on that knowledge, and that will change their life however they choose to act.

"You acted tonight. It wasn't your fight. There was no reason for you to be there. But I don't think I could have done what I needed to do without you there. Thank you.

"And through that act, you learned something, Detective. Something I've been telling you for months. As long as they were just words, you could choose to ignore them. Tonight, you weren't told. You saw.

"For every Moses inspired to greatness, there are a dozen Malcolms, driven to madness by certain knowledge of the divine. And Moses didn't come out of that one unscathed either. This knowledge is a burden as well as a blessing."

Movement. The blankets were pulled back around her and tucked in. Another tender, protective caress over her hair. "You still have a choice, Detective. Now, while you're still asleep. You can choose to regard it as a dream, or a nightmare – the stress of a gruelling case getting to you. The human mind can be amazingly resilient. Let it be a figment of your imagination, and nothing needs to change. Yet."

A sigh. "This choice, unfortunately, can't be a conscious one. You either admit the possibility into your rational mind or you do not. This is the best I can offer. So please, Chloe, rest."

There was a slight darkening of the shadows over her, a light flutter on her forehead that might or might not be a kiss. "Whatever you choose. I'll be here."


	2. The Exercise of Free Will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after the night before, Chloe has to make a choice, and face the consequences.

# Forget

Daylight. Dammit. Chloe turned into her pillow, trying to glean a few more moments of sleep. The last few days had been hell. In fact, she didn't even remember getting home and falling into bed yesterday evening.

Something poked uncomfortably into her side. The rivets on her jeans. Wow, she must have been really tired to not have undressed last night. She sat up, hoping to get out of her clothes, close the curtains and sleep a little longer.

Her foot hit a plush bird. The toy Trixie still slept with (though she pretended she didn't). How'd that get here? That thought was soon overtaken by another. It was a school day. Trixie needed to get to school. What time was it?

Sleepiness forgotten for the moment, Chloe rushed into the kitchen. She was brought up short by the smell of freshly baked muffins, overlaid with coffee and bacon. And Lucifer at the kitchen counter, arranging all of it on a tray. He must have heard her coming, because he set down the plate and turned around.

"Good morning, Detective."

The greeting was subdued, not at all like Lucifer. On the other hand, the showing up unannounced and uninvited very much was. "Lucifer, you can't keep breaking in here!"

"Oh." She seemed to have actually stumped him. Ever ready with a retort, Lucifer now regarded her in silence for a few heartbeats. Then he nodded.

"I didn't, in fact," he said. "Not this time." He picked up the coffee pot from the counter and poured some into a mug. "You collapsed at work. I talked to your lieutenant, then took you home." He gestured toward the bedroom with the mug. "I put you into your bed and waited here."

"What?" It was the first question that came to her mind. Okay, she'd been running mostly on candy bars and caffeine for the past three days, but still, to just black out like that… Maybe she shouldn't have taken those painkillers before interviewing survivors. But they'd just been Tylenol and without them she wouldn't have been able to concentrate through the massive headache that was this whole case. Besides, it wasn't what mattered most. Chloe shook her head, overriding her first question with a different one. "Where's Trixie?"

"Mrs Martin from across the street took her to school along with her own spawn." Lucifer shot a glance in the direction of the Martin household and then gave her one of his trademark suggestive grins. "She'll see your offspring gets her education."

"And as for why I waited, well…" He took up the platter he'd been arranging earlier and offered it to her with a flourish. "I could hardly put you to bed and let you wake up without breakfast _twice_. I do have a reputation to maintain."

Chloe pushed the tray away. The smells coming off it were glorious, but her stomach knotted itself at the thought of eating. Anger seemed the easiest way around nausea. It wasn't as if Lucifer didn't deserve it. "And where were you the past few days? Maintaining that 'reputation' while I worked my ass off?"

Lucifer's cheerful grin faded. He slid the tray back onto the counter and squared his shoulders. "You _did_ suggest I keep a low profile. What with the press getting on my neck again for more Satanic killings. Which were just as much my responsibility as the last batch, I might add." 

Sarcasm, the sign of an annoyed Lucifer. That brought Chloe up short. She _had_ suggested that. Still, she hadn't expected Lucifer to take her up on it so literally. He'd had plenty of objections the previous time, and he'd been a lot closer to the case, then. "Keeping a low profile isn't disappearing altogether!"

That headache was coming back. She glared at Lucifer as hard as the pounding in her head allowed. He appeared chastened, at least. He swallowed. "Yes. I am sorry about that."

Chloe closed her eyes and sighed. She wanted so much to get back to bed and sleep for another _day_ , but there was more work to be done. Cases like these didn't wait. "Okay, fine. Apology accepted. You can make up for it by helping from today. That last killing spree had witnesses. We still need to interview them and…"

"Oh, right, I should have said sooner," Lucifer interrupted her. He reached across the counter and grabbed the newspaper that was next to her open laptop. He presented the headline article to her. "Police received an anonymous tip yesterday. They found a whole _set_ of miscreants in a barn out in the desert." He turned the paper around and read from the article. "Suspects could be tied to several of the recent massacres."

He slapped the paper back onto the counter. "All over but the mopping up. Your lieutenant said to take the day off and rest. Paperwork can wait until tomorrow."

"Thank God," Chloe couldn't help expressing her relief. She caught the sour look from Lucifer, insulted as usual at any reference to his 'Father'. She couldn't bring herself to care too much. Her bed beckoned. "Okay then. You get out of here so I can go back to sleep." She pointed him to the door. "I'll call you tomorrow if I have anything."

That surprised Lucifer. "Oh, come on, Detective, you can't throw me out again! We haven't even had breakfast yet!"

Chloe grabbed one of the muffins off the tray and put it in Lucifer's hands. "Here you go."

Lucifer took the muffin and let himself be guided to the door without further struggle. Once outside, though, he just stood there, doing nothing and with an unreadable expression on his face. It was weird enough to trigger a spark of curiosity. "Hey," she said, and once Lucifer focused his attention on her, "you okay?"

"I'm fine," he responded, sighing. He straightened out. "Just a bit… disappointed." He went distant for a second, then came back to the moment at hand. "Goodbye, Detective. Sleep well."

 

* * *

# Deny

Daylight. Dammit. It was bright enough to wake Chloe up and too bright to keep pretending to sleep, much as she'd like to. She was still exhausted from her nightmares. They had even prompted Trixie to join her, from the looks of it. She'd left her plush toy behind this morning.

Except they hadn't just been nightmares, had they? Oh, there'd been nightmares last night, but it hadn't been helped by whatever craziness it had Lucifer had come up with either.

She hadn't really seen all of that, had she? She couldn't have. That sort of thing just didn't happen. For whatever reason, Lucifer had been putting on a show or something. There was bound to be some reason that made sense in _his_ head.

She'd better get up. Sleeping in her clothes was uncomfortable. Lying in bed after _having_ slept in them even more so. Her bra was poking places it shouldn't. Besides, Trixie needed to get to school, so she'd better see to breakfast. She glanced at the clock. Running late already.

She came out of her bedroom. "Trixie! Time to get to…" She stopped when she turned the corner to the kitchen and saw Lucifer. "Oh."

Lucifer turned around, plate in hand. "Good morning, Detective." He'd changed his clothes from yesterday. He was back in his usual tailored shirt and jacket, although the fit looked a little bit off.

The way Lucifer looked was not her main problem right now, though. "Where's Trixie?"

Lucifer turned his head toward the front door, as if trying to see through it. "You just missed her. I convinced Mrs. Martin to take her to school. The girl seemed to think she'd be capable." 

Chloe nodded. Konoka Martin had two sons at the same school as Trixie, two and three years above her. They weren't friends, but they'd carpooled before when Dan had flaked. She was also one of the most terrifying momzillas on the block when it came to her children's education. She'd make sure Trixie got to school, all right. "She is. That's good."

Lucifer was regarding her a little curiously. "She wanted to wake you, but you looked like you needed the sleep," he remarked, almost as an aside. "Are you alright, detective?"

Chloe frowned. "Why wouldn't I be?" Even as she said it, images of last night flashed through her head and her stomach turned even at the memory. She closed her eyes for a second. She was swaying on her feet.

"That's a lie," Lucifer concluded immediately. Of course. He took one of her hands in his. His other hand he put at her back, barely touching, only guiding. He made a slight movement toward her couch. "Do you want to sit down?"

The image in her inner eye was Lucifer – well, maybe Lucifer. It didn't look much like him but it felt like it should be him. Lucifer, crushing someone's skull to the floor with his bare hands. The same hands that were now on her. Chloe pulled away. "I prefer to stand." She shook her head, trying to get rid of the images. "Congratulations, your prank worked. You spooked me." She was getting angry now. It helped. She glared at Lucifer who was looking at her, confusion writ large on his face. 

Several emotions crossed Lucifer's face before it went completely blank and a little distant. She'd pulled away from him, now he was pulling away from _her_.

"Oh, it wasn't a _prank_ , Detective."

"Then what was it? You disappear for days on end, and I find out you've gone after a suspect entirely on your own. You're not a cop, Lucifer. Even if you were, you can't just run off and play vigilante!"

"Mortal law enforcement couldn't have handled this," Lucifer tried defending himself. Expression was returning to his face, a mix of the earlier curiosity and increasing disbelief.

Chloe snorted. "I guess not. If you'd treated the LAPD to that lightshow you put on for _me_ , your whole special effects team would be riddled with bullets by now."

"Chloe, don't do this to yourself," Lucifer pleaded. He was seeking support from the kitchen counter. "I understand it's a difficult thing to get your head around, but…"

"Lucifer, I can ignore your delusions most of the time, but this 'Devil' thing is getting out of hand. You have to stop this."

That did something. Lucifer drew himself up again, standing tall and imperious. "It's the _truth_ , Detective." He took a step closer. "Your refusal to face them doesn't change the facts."

He held that pose and expression for several heartbeats, while Chloe didn't dare move. Lucifer wouldn't attack her, she was one hundred percent sure – but right now, it looked like he would lash out at the least thing that did get in his way.

The moment passed, and Lucifer seemed to diminish. He cleared his throat. "As you wish, Detective." He sighed and rubbed his face. "Your capacity for denial is astonishing." He pointed at her laptop, sitting on the other side of the kitchen counter. "I've left a report on there that your Lieutenant will believe. Use it if you like." He turned around to take in the detritus of a fully cooked but not yet served breakfast. "Eat the food, too, while it's still fresh." A moment of silence. "And I think I'd better go."

"Sounds like a good idea," Chloe agreed. Lucifer leaving without being told to get out. There had to be a first time for everything.

"Right, see you later, then."

He headed for the door. Chloe stepped ahead of him to open it, out of habit, politeness or maybe something else she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Lucifer brushed past her on his way out. At that light contact, he stopped on the doorstep and turned around. He wrapped his arms around her. Not with any pressure – more like he was holding on to something so fragile it might break at any moment. Something that needed protecting. It was unexpected enough Chloe didn't struggle. She could feel through his shirt, now. His ribs were bandaged, all injuries hidden by his clothing.

He started talking again, into the top of her head. "I am sorry, Detective. Whenever you're ready, I'm here."

Chloe moved, and Lucifer sprang back as if he'd been tasered. He stood for a few more seconds in awkward silence, brushing his clothes and looking anywhere but at her. Finally, he coughed. "Well then, I'm off. See you… sometime."

 

* * *

# Accept

 

Daylight. Dammit. It was bright enough to wake Chloe up and too bright to keep pretending to sleep, much as she'd like to. She was still exhausted from her nightmares. They had even prompted Trixie to join her, from the extra indentation in the mattress and the vague memory of Trixie's head against her chest. She'd left her plush bird on the floor by the bed.

Except they hadn't just been nightmares, had they? What she'd seen had been nightmarish, but, somehow, _real_. And completely surreal at the same time. As soon as she closed her eyes, the images danced across her vision again.

Chloe sat up, put her head in her hands. She dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, trying to wipe the sight of an honest-to-god _demon_ coming straight at her from her eyeballs. It didn't work, because sight was the least of the sensations involved.

_Breathe_ , Decker. She had Trixie to think of. With Dan still in custody awaiting trial, she couldn't abandon her daughter. There was a way through this. She just had to find it. Right now, she just needed to take another breath. Open her eyes and get moving.

She stood up and got dressed, pausing after every item of clothing and every stroke of her hairbrush. Focussing on the simple mechanics of getting dressed was soothing. She felt almost normal by the time she was done.

She was also running really late to take Trixie to school. She hurried out of the bedroom.

She nearly ran into Lucifer in the corridor, on his way to the bedroom. He was carrying a tray with a breakfast that wouldn't have shamed a five-star hotel.

He stepped back quickly, deftly balancing the tray to keep the coffee from spilling. "Good morning, Detective." When Chloe didn't respond after several seconds, he backed away a little further. "Looks like breakfast in bed is no longer an option," he said hesitantly. "I'll just take this back to the kitchen, shall I?"

He turned around to go back to the kitchen, where he deposited the tray on the dinner table. Chloe stopped in the doorway, watching him.

He was just Lucifer again – immaculate suit, not a hair out of place. This early in the morning, he was even perfectly clean-shaven. No different from usual. But somehow, she couldn't stop seeing last night's Lucifer – all the variations of him, overlying each other, blurring her vision.

No, wait. The blurry vision was her getting dizzy again. Chloe swayed slightly on her feet. Lucifer noticed, and was next to her to guide her to a chair.

As soon as she was sitting down, he retreated to the other side of the table. He didn't sit down. He stood instead, his hands gripping the back of the chair. Presenting himself, almost.

He gave her plenty of time to recover. As Chloe found the strength to look up again, he finally spoke again. "You have questions, I suppose."

"What are you?" It was the first question that came to mind. Even if she really already knew what Lucifer would answer to that one.

He did, too. He looked away, the ghost of a smile on his face. "I've been telling you, Detective. Since the beginning." He swallowed and squared his shoulders, looking her in the eye. "Maybe now you can believe it."

Maybe. He definitely was _something_. "And what was that thing?"

Lucifer took a deep breath. "It was… a distraction. A demon released from Hell for no other purpose than to side-track me." He looked away. "It worked."

Chloe closed her eyes. It was a mistake. Lucifer's words brought the thing – demon – to the forefront of her mind again. She folded her hands together to stop them trembling.

A chair scraped on the floor, then Lucifer's hands wrapped around hers. "It thrives on death and chaos. But it's back where it belongs. It can't touch you here, Detective, if you don't let it." When she didn't respond, he insisted. "Chloe, open your eyes."

She did. Lucifer had sat down and he was leaning across the table. She could only see his eyes, looking back into hers. "The bad news is I can't do anything to protect you from this part." The crow's feet around his eyes wrinkled. "The good news is I don't have to. That's the power of humanity. You get to _choose_."

"Choose what?"

"Anything. Everything." Lucifer released her hands and sat back. "The great powers of the universe can try to persuade you with force or favour, but ultimately your actions are your own.

"In this case, you can choose what to focus on. The fear is one focus, certainly. I've never known you to be afraid for long, Detective. How do you usually get past your fears?"

Chloe took a deep breath. Focus on what was in front of her. Which, in this case, happened to be Lucifer.

Lucifer, who was the Devil.

Lucifer, who had crushed the demon with his bare hands.

Lucifer, who had driven the man who had ordered the hit on Delilah into insanity.

Lucifer, who had nearly strangled one murder suspect and thrown another through a window.

Lucifer, who had sacrificed himself so she and Trixie could get away from Malcom Graham.

Lucifer, who had been genuinely upset by Malcolm killing in his name.

Lucifer, who had saved her when she'd been near-fatally shot.

Lucifer, who had once been an angel.

There'd been fear last night, but there had been hope, too. Lucifer had revealed himself as a demon, but before that… Before that, there had been a glimpse of the angel he had been. That's what was in front of her, now. 

She nodded, slowly. Took a deep breath, just to see if she could. Her breathing didn't waver. Good. She closed her eyes again. The images weren't gone, but they were bearable. She could get past this.

Lucifer noticed the improvement, too. He smiled, a grin with genuine cheer this time. "Well done, Detective." He sat up straight, hands flat on the table. "Anything else you want to know?"

There was something else before her, something that should have been higher in her mind. It seemed very much as if they were alone. "Where's Trixie?"

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. "At school, where she should be." He tried for a neutral expression, but it came closer to a smile. "We had quite the argument this morning. She insisted on going to school and waking you up before she left. I said she could stay home if she liked, but you were going to sleep as long as it took. In the end, we compromised on her going to school and you sleeping in.

"Of course, then we got to the matter of how she was going to _get_ to school."

Chloe dug into the breakfast (it really _was_ that good), while Lucifer told the tale of his expedition to the Martin's house across the street. Chloe hid a smile at his spot-on descriptions of Konoka Martin and her two sons. This felt so domestic, so _normal_. The pure mundanity of the scene did even more to dispel the fear in the back of her mind than Lucifer's earlier encouragement had.

It wouldn't last, though. It couldn't.

Lucifer often talked as if the people he interacted with on a day-to-day basis were, if not exactly inferior, then distant from him. Of course he would, if being the Devil was not just a delusion, but actual fact. Just from what she'd seen last night, he was used to interacting on a completely different level.

He'd been playing human for five years already. How much longer could he keep that up?'

"What are you thinking about, Detective?" Lucifer had noticed her distraction.

Direct always seemed to work best where Lucifer was concerned. "Where do we go from here?"

Lucifer frowned at her, then gestured at the laptop on the kitchen counter. "If it's the wrap-up of the case you're worried about, I wrote a summary. It covers the essentials without going into unnecessary details. You can adapt that for your reports, or make up your own version."

Chloe shook her head. "That's not what I meant. I mean…" she made some nonspecific hand gestures, intending to encompass her, Lucifer and the entire situation. "Everything else."

"I see." Lucifer let the silence stretch. "Well, what do you want, Detective?"

It always came back to that, didn't it? Lucifer was so good at getting answers to that question. And she truly didn't have one for him. "I… I don't know."

"Hmmm… Of course, I have some ideas." He launched into a list of potential activities that ranged from the merely tasteless (private tour of a porn studio) to the borderline illegal (gatecrash a Hollywood party), with a stop in between for the ridiculously extravagant (rent out the Bellagio hotel and re-enact Hot Tub High School with models – male ones, that is), and more. "But that doesn't strike me as anything _you_ 'd want to do."

"What if I just wanted to stay in, order pizza and play Scrabble?"

Lucifer's face lit up. "Why, Detective." He shot her the grin he usually reserved for flirting. "You'd play games with the Devil?"

For once, Chloe felt like responding in kind. "Sure."

Lucifer took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. "Challenge accepted. Bring it on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... apparently I did need to write Chloe making her choice. But I couldn't write just *one* option. So you get three times the fic.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it, and thank you to MoonbeamsFanfic for the beta.
> 
> XWA

**Author's Note:**

> I could say so much more about free will, choices and the consequences of making the latter on the former... but there is only so much Lucifer can say to a half-asleep Chloe. And I truly don't know myself which choice I'd prefer her to take, should Chloe ever really be confronted by incontrovertible proof of Lucifer's condition.
> 
> Lucifer seems very much to be about free will and acting on it. I don't think he could deliberately take an action that limited someone else's free will. The tragedy being, of course, is that that limits _his_ freedom to act, under a lot of circumstances. Very much including pretty much whenever he interacts with Chloe.
> 
> \--  
> XWA


End file.
